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might be in there, for all she cared, instilling in her nephews and nieces songs they had no ability to understand.
    But here, and now drawing level with her as Harriet made off as fast as she could through the beech wood to Donwell, was none other than Captain Brocklehurst, astride a very fine chestnut mare. Mr. Frank Churchill was not with him, was Emma’s last conscious thought.
    Captain Brocklehurst, dismounting, bowed with amost particular smile to Mrs. Knightley, and asked if he might witness the sketch of a draughtswoman of whom everyone in Highbury spoke with unstinting praise.
    â€œYou do me too much honour, sir,” said Emma; but her eyes danced and her colour – as Harriet would have noted, had she turned in her headlong flight to domestic harmony – turned a most becoming shade of pink.

Chapter 10
    Human nature is so well inclined to the receiving of compliments, that any amount of annoyance or interference will go unchecked, in order for the succession of pleasant remarks to continue.
    So it was, on the rustic bench at Hartfield that day. Songs – and on occasion lively airs played on the pianoforte – emanated with increasing frequency from the open windows of the house. Cheers, of a suspiciously rabble-rousing nature, rose at intervals. Despite all this, Emma could be perceived to be sitting as still as a statue; or, as indeed was the case, as model for the artist’s pen: for, while Captain Brocklehurst spoke, he drew; and the expertise and fluency withwhich he wielded the crayon, taken slyly from her box, served only as further proof of the extent of connoisseurship of the young man.
    â€œThis is an unexpected honour,” the Captain had said, “to find the subject – the most beautiful in Surrey – and to find the means by which I may make an attempt, however humble, to depict her—”
    â€œYou must not leave out Box Hill,” said Emma, laughing. “Another famous landmark, Captain. You must not neglect to visit there and to paint – if you are regular with the brush, as I suspect.”
    â€œIndeed, I am; but Box Hill does not have heavenly eyes,” came the reply, with perhaps too practised an ease. “Nor, if I may say so, the distinguished line of neck and head. Ah yes, Mrs. Elton has told us of her husband’s travelling to London – before they were married, naturally! – solely in order to have a likeness of you framed, Mrs. Knightley. Is that not the case?”
    â€œNo, it is not,” said Emma, who found that laughter was putting her in a better frame of mind than she had known since the disastrous day of John Knightley’s accidental meeting with Miss Fairfax – and his subsequent ill humour, which continued to affect her own. “The sketch Mr. Elton took to London was
by
me, I fear;
I
was not the subject. That was Harriet Smith – Mrs. Martin, as she is now.”
    â€œBut Mr. Elton took the trouble to go all the way tothe capital for the fair talents of an exceptional person,” put in Captain Brocklehurst, eagerly. “If the portrait he carried showed the head of a Miss Smith, it was of the head of a Miss Woodhouse that he dreamed when he undertook the mission.”
    Emma could not help smiling at the dexterity of her portraitist’s extrication from his
gaffe
: she wondered, however, why he had come to be on intimate terms with Mrs. Elton, and how.
    â€œIf you will be good enough to turn a little in the direction of the orchard, Mrs. Knightley. Ah yes, it is most affecting. It is sad indeed that Mr. Woodhouse, of whom I have heard so much, cannot be here to see his daughter drawn, rather than always drawing: complimented instead of constantly working for the benefit of others, however ungrateful they might be!”
    Emma found her complacency brought to an abrupt halt by this tone of familiarity. Frank Churchill must be the one who confided stories of the past, to his